Sunday, November 20, 2011

Why app stores may be restricting too much of your freedom

Here at Appguppy, we’re often asked where the mobile apps that you create actually live, since they’re not distributed through the app stores. Our answer? We’ll we don’t just have one response, we’ve got six: Facebook, Twitter, QR codes, text message, email AND your website. Technically speaking, it would be most accurate to say that the apps lives in our secure servers, or Appguppy’s cloud. But since the apps get distributed through these 6 different methodologies, in a sense, they’re living in social media. But what does it mean for your app if it isn’t being deployed through the stores? More trouble than you asked for. Lets find out why: 1) Mobile app stores are too restrictive: Let’s take a look at some of the terms you’ve got to be familiar with if you want your app to wind up in a store -- licensing, certificates, compilation...the list goes on. Maybe you’re thinking you could rely on another entity, perhaps a company, to submit the app for you. Unfortunately, even paying that company the big bucks doesn’t guarantee that your app will make it into the stores. That’s because stores are constantly changing their restrictions, making it more and more difficult day by day, to make it in. 2) Mobile app stores take time: What’s the minimum amount of time that your app will be ready for download by your customers once you submit it? When it comes the Apple app store, you could be waiting as much as a week. But what if you’re trying to generate interest in a special promotion you’re having right now or get more people out to your event while it’s still happening? Unfortunately, the stores can’t help you out there. 3) Mobile app stores don’t give you discoverability: So you get your app into the store, now what? Chances are, you’ll be competing with hundreds of thousands of other apps for the attention of consumers. So on top of worrying about SEO optimization, you’ve got to be worrying about app discoverability in the stores? At Appguppy, we don’t think you should have to deal with all of that extra hassle. Our idea is that you should be able to distribute that app directly to your customers’ phones, harnessing the power of all of your Twitter followers or all of your Facebook likes. At Appguppy, we believe you shouldn’t have to struggle with all of the time, money and complexity currently involved in distributing apps through stores. That’s our ultimate source of inspiration. It’s also our solution to helping to make sure that your apps work on all smartphones, on all platforms. So while we may be saying “Saynora!” to the stores, we know we’re saying “Bring it on!” to freedom.